Times UK Retraction of Purported Sakineh Photo and Apology

The following errata and apology ran in the Times UK on Friday, September 3, 2010. Unfortunately, the Islamic Republic regime had already noticed it and decided to use it as an excuse to sentence Sakineh to another 99 lashes. Reproduced with permission from The Times.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani misidentified in photograph by ex-lawyer
Martin Fletcher, Behind the story
Last updated September 3 2010 12:01AM

A woman identified as Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in The Times last week was the victim of mistaken identity. The photograph printed was not of Ms Ashtiani but of Susan Hejrat, an Iranian exile who lives in Sweden and sits on the central committee of the Hekmanist [sic] party, a breakaway faction of Iran’s Communist party.

It was given to The Times in good faith by Mohammed Mostafaei, who was Ms Ashtiani’s lawyer in Tehran until he was forced to flee Iran this summer for publicising her plight. He was responding to a request for a fresh picture of her.

Mr Mostafaei said yesterday that Ms Ashtiani’s son, Sajad, 22, had e-mailed him two photographs three months ago and told him both were of his mother. One was the widely used picture of Ms Ashtiani with her face obscured by a chador, and the other was the one used by The Times on Saturday. That showed the full face of a woman. Mr Mostafaei said he had visited Ms Ashtiani in prison only once while representing her and he had been unable to see her full face because it was concealed behind her chador.

The Times could not contact Ms Ashtiani’s son last night, but Ahmad Fatemi of the International Committee against Stoning suggested a possible explanation, saying Ms Hejrat wrote a short article on Ms Ashtiani last month, with her own picture appended.